So you think you're computer-illiterate? Check out the following
excerpts from a Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton:
1. Compaq is considering changing the command "Press Any Key" to "Press
Return Key" because of the flood of calls asking where the "Any" key is.
2. AST technical support had a caller complaining that her mouse was
hard to control with the dust cover on. The cover turned out to be the
plastic bag the mouse was packaged in.
3. Another Compaq technician received a call from a man complaining
that the system couldn't read word processing files from his old
diskettes. After trouble- shooting for magnets and heat failed to
diagnose the problem, it was found that the customer labeled the
diskettes then rolled them into the typewriter to type the labels.
4. Another AST customer was asked to send a copy of her defective
diskettes. A few days later a letter arrived from the customer along with
Xeroxed copies of the floppies.
5. A Dell technician advised his customer to put his troubled floppy
back in the drive and close the door. The customer asked the tech to
hold on, and was heard putting the phone down, getting up and crossing
the room to close the door to his room.
6. Another Dell customer called to say he couldn't get his computer to
fax anything. After 40 minutes of trouble-shooting, the technician
discovered the man was trying to fax a piece of paper by holding it in
front of the monitor screen and hitting the "send" key.
7. Another Dell customer needed help setting up a new program, so a
Dell tech suggested he go to the local Egghead. "Yeah, I got me a
couple of friends, "the customer replied. When told Egghead was a
software store, the man said, "Oh, I thought you meant for me to find a
couple of geeks."
8. Yet another Dell customer called to complain that his keyboard no
longer worked. He had cleaned it by filling up his tub with soap and
water and soaking the keyboard for a day, then removing all the keys and
washing them individually.
9. A Dell technician received a call from a customer who was enraged
because his computer had told him he was "bad and an invalid". The tech
explained that the computer's "bad command" and "invalid" responses
shouldn't be taken personally.
10. An exasperated caller to Dell Computer Tech Support couldn't get her
new Dell Computer to turn on. After ensuring the computer was plugged in,
the technician asked her what happened when she pushed the power button.
Her response, "I pushed and pushed on this foot pedal and
nothing happens." The "foot pedal" turned out to be the computer's
mouse.
11. Another customer called Compaq tech support to say her brand-new
computer wouldn't work. She said she unpacked the unit, plugged it in,
and sat there for 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. When asked
what happened when she pressed the power switch, she asked "What power
switch?"
12. True story from a Novell NetWire SysOp:
Caller: "Hello, is this Tech Support?"
Tech Rep: "Yes, it is. How may I help you?"
Caller: "The cup holder on my PC is broken and I am within my
warranty period. How do I go about getting that fixed?"
Tech Rep: "I'm sorry, but did you say a cup holder?"
Caller: "Yes, it's attached to the front of my computer."
Tech Rep: "Please excuse me if I seem a bit stumped, it's
because I am. Did you receive this as part of a
promotional, at a trade show? How did you get this cup
holder? Does it have any trademark on it?"
Caller: "It came with my computer, I don't know anything
about a promotional. It just has '4X' on it."
At this point the Tech Rep had to mute the caller, because he couldn't
stand it. The caller had been using the load drawer of the CD-ROM drive
as a cup holder, and snapped it off the drive!
Have a nice day,
I still can't find that darned "Any" key!
Hymn Happy:
The Dentist's Hymn "Crown Him with Many Crowns"
The TV Weatherman's Hymn "There Shall Be Showers of Blessing"
The Contractor's Hymn "The Church's One Foundation"
The Tailor's Hymn "Holy, Holy, Holy"
The Golfer's Hymn "There Is a Green Hill Far Away"
The Politician's Hymn "Standing on the Promises"
The Optometrist's Hymn "Open Mine Eyes That I Might See"
The IRS Hymn "All to Thee"
The Gossiper's Hymn "Pass It On"
The Electrician's Hymn "Send the Light"
The Shopper's Hymn "Sweet By & By"
HILLBILLY COMPUTE'N
LOG ON: Making the woodstove hotter
LOG OFF: Don't add no more wood
MONITOR: Keepin an eye on that woodstove
DOWNLOAD: Gettin the farwood off the truk
MEGA HERTZ: When yer not keerful gettin that farwood downloaded
FLOPPY DISK: Whutcha git from tryin to carry too much farwood
RAM: That thar thang whut splits tha farwood
HARD DRIVE: Gettin home in tha winter tym
PROMPT: Whut the mail ain't in the winter tym
WINDOWS: Whut to shut when its cold outside
SCREEN: Whut to shut when its blak fly season
BYTE: Whut them dang flys do
CHIP: Munchies fer the TV
MICRO CHIP: Whuts left in the munchie bag
INFRARED: Whur the left over munchies go, Fred eats em
MODEM: Whatcha did to the hay fields
DOT MATRIX: Ol Dan Matrix's wife
LAP TOP: Whur the kitty sleeps
KEYBOARD: Whur ya hang the dang keys
SOFTWARE: Them dang plastik forks and nifes
MOUSE: What eats tha grain in tha barn
MAIN FRAME: Holds up th barn ruuf
PORT: Fancy Flatlander Wine
ENTER: Northern fer c'mon in y'all
RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: When ya caint member whut ya paid for yer new
firle when yore wife ask
It seems a pastor from Maine skipped services one Sunday to go bear
hunting
in the mountains. As he turned the corner along the path, he and a bear
collided. The pastor stumbled backwards, slipped off the trail, and began
tumbling down the mountain with the bear in hot pursuit. Finally the
pastor
crashed into a boulder, sending his rifle flying and breaking both legs.
As
the bear closed in, the pastor cried out in desperation, "Lord, I'm sorry
for what I have done. Please forgive me and save me! Lord, please make
that
bear a Christian."
Suddenly the bear skidded to a halt at the pastor's feet, fell to its
knees, clasped its paws together and said, "God, bless this food which I
am about to receive"
ACTUAL Announcements Taken from Church Bulletins:
1) Don't let worry kill you. Let the Church help.
2) Thursday night-Potluck Supper. Prayer and medication to follow.
3) Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our church and
community.
4) For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a
nursery
downstairs.
5) The rosebud on the altar this morning is to announce the birth
of David
Alan Belzer, the sin of Rev and Mrs. Julius Belzer.
6) This afternoon there will be a meeting in the south and north
ends of
the church. Children will be baptized at both ends.
7) This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come
forward and
lay an egg on the altar.
8) The service will close with "Little Drops of Water". One of the
ladies
will start (quietly) and the rest of the congregation will join in.
9) Next Sunday, a special collection will be taken to defray the
cost
of the new carpet. All those wishing to do something on the new carpet
will come forward and get a piece of paper.
10) The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind
and they
may be seen in the church basement Friday.
11) A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church
hall. Music
will follow.
12) At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What
is Hell?"
Come early and listen to our choir practice.
13) Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian
Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
14) The 1991 Spring Council Retreat will be hell May 10 and 11.
15) Pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to church
secretary.
16) 8 new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of
several
new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
17) The Senior Choir invites any member of the congregation who
enjoys
sinning to join the choir.
18) Please join us as we show our support for Amy and Alan who is
preparing
for the girth of their first child.
Subject: WHAT IF DR. SEUSS DID TECHNICAL WRITING?
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
And the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
Then the socket packet pocket has an error to report!
If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,
And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,
And your data is corrupted 'cause the index doesn't hash,
Then your situation's hopeless and your system's gonna crash!
If the label on the cable on the table at your house,
Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse.
But your packets want to tunnel on another protocol,
That's repeatedly rejected by by the printer down the hall,
And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,
So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse,
Then you may as well reboot and let it go out with a bang,
'Cause as sure as I'm a poet, man, that sucker's gonna hang.
When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk,
And the microcode instructions cause unnecessary risk,
Then you have to flash your mem'ry and you'd better RAM your ROM,
Quickly unplug the computer -- but be sure to tell your mom!
Once upon a time, there lived a man who had a terrible passion for
baked beans. He loved them, but they always had an embarrassing and
somewhat lively reaction on him. One day he met a girl and fell in love.
When it was apparent that they would marry, he thought to himself, she'll
never go through with the marriage with me carrying on like this,
so he made the supreme sacrifice and gave up beans. Shortly after that
they were married.
A few months later, on the way home from work, his car broke down and since
they lived in the country, he called his wife and told her that he would be
late because he had to walk. On his way home, he passed
a small cafe and the wonderful aroma of baked beans overwhelmed him.
Since he still had several miles to walk he figured he could walk off
any ill affects before he got home. So he went in and ordered, and
before leaving had three extra large helpings of baked beans. All the way
home he putt-putted. He putt-putted down one hill and putt-putted up the
next. By the time he arrive home, he felt reasonably safe.
His wife met him at the door and seemed somewhat excited. She
exclaimed, Darling, I have the most wonderful surprise for you for dinner
tonight!. She put a blindfold on him, and led him to his chair at the head
of the table and made him promise not to peek. At this point he was
beginning to feel another one coming on. Just as his wife was about to
remove the blindfold, the telephone rang. She again made him promise not to
peek until she returned, and she went to answer the phone.
While she was gone, he seized the opportunity. He shifted his weight to
one leg and let go. It was not only loud, but ripe as a rotten egg. He had
a hard time breathing, so he felt for his napkin and fanned the air about
him. He had just started to feel better, when another urge came on. He
raised his leg and rriiipppp!. It sounded like a diesel engine revving, and
smelled worse. To keep from gagging, he tried fanning his arms a while,
hoping the smell would dissipate. Things had just about returned to normal
when he felt another urge coming. He shifted his weight to his other leg
and let go. This one was a real blue ribbon winner; the windows shook, the dishes
on the table rattled and a minute later the flowers on the table were dead.
While keeping an ear tuned in on the conversation in the hallway, and
keeping his promise of staying blindfolded, he carried on like this for the
next ten minutes, farting and then fanning each time with his napkin.
When he heard the phone farewells (indicating the end of his loneliness
and freedom) he neatly laid his napkin on his lap and folded his hands on
top of it. Smiling contentedly, he was the picture of innocence when his
wife walked in.
Apologizing for taking so long, she asked if he had peeked at the
dinner table. After assuring her he had not peeked, she removed the
blindfold and yelled, Surprise!
To his shock and horror, there were twelve dinner guests seated around
the table for his surprise birthday party.
There once was a Preacher that needed a horse; his church was to far away to walk and he
didn't like cars. So a man phoned the Preacher and told him he had a horse that was
perfect for him. To make the horse go the Preacher would say "Praise the Lord" and to
make him stop "Halleujah" . One day on the way back from church The Preacher decided
to take a little known shortcut. And as he traveled along he noticed the bridge ahead had
washed out. He told his horse woah but the horse kept on going. Finaly as he was almost
over the edge he rembered the word "Halleujah" !! Overjoyed that his horse stoped the
Preacher exclaimed "PRAISE THE LORD".
1. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the
alphabet.
2. Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
3. A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
4. In the 1940s, the FCC assigned television's Channel 1 to mobile services (two-way
radios in taxicabs, for instance) but did not re-number the other channel assignments. That
is why your TV set has channels 2 and up, but no channel 1.
5. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
6. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is
uncopyrightable.
7. Hang On Snoopy is the official rock song of Ohio.
8. Did you know that there are coffee flavored PEZ?
9. The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines
were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how
to walk up straight staircases.
10. The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don
McLean song.)
11. When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing." They actually pass out
from sheer terror.
12. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it
was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would
occupy the building.
13. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history.
Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts Charlemagne, and
Diamonds - Julius Caesar.
14. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
15. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person
died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of
wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of
natural causes.
16. Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them
used to burn their houses down - hence the expression "to get fired."
17. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock
and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't
added until 5 years later.
18. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
19. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When
arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured
exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a
target, it got "the whole 9 yards."
20. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's
kissing the conveyor belt.
21. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you
couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. (What a lovely law!!)
22. An ostrich's eye is bigger that it's brain.
23. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
24. The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight.
These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
25. David Prowse was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars.
He spoke all of Vader's lines, and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by
James Earl Jones until he saw the screening of the movie. (Wouldn't that make you
mad!)
26. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose"
vehicle, G.P.
27. The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary.
When it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring
separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
28. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel
that it burns.
29. Cat's urine glows under a blacklight. (I don't even want to know who found out that it
did that!!!)
30. The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. 58.
According to one study, 24% of lawns have some sort of lawn ornament in their
yard.
32. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also
have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a
dollar.
33. No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has
ever won a Super Bowl. (That's why the St. Louis Rams have never won the Super
Bowl!)
34. The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver".
35. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB,
NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star
Game.
36. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
37. The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
38. In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
39. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of
footballs.
40. Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already
married.
41. There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun. (Who spent
the time counting them????)
42. The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
43. Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
44. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in
that order.
45. When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
46. It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
47. The Bible has been translated into Klingon.
48. Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
49. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
50. Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
51. On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year. (Can't you just
see the obituary?)
52. In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons
combined.
53. Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
54. Average age of top GM executives in 1994: 49.8 years. Average age of the Rolling
Stones: 50.6.
55. Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
56. The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
57. Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared
the
computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept
up
with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be
driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1,000 mi/gal."
Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the
statement: "Yes, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"
IF MICROSOFT BUILT CARS...
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to
buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway, for no reason,
and
you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop
and
fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange
reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you
bought "Car95" or CarNT'. But, then you would have to buy more
seats.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was
reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would
only
run on 5 percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades
to
their cars which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a
single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what
happened.
11 Next time you stop at a gas station you will see the sign,
"Sorry,
NT conversion in progress. Visit our web page at WWW or Come back
next fall to download the latest version of Windows 99, or call the
IT-Help Desk. Bad command or file name error #1255" ...and there
will be a line from here to California waiting for refueling.
Pillsbury Doughboy Obituary
Veteran Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh died yesterday of a severe
yeast infection. He was 71. Known to friends as Brown-n-Serve, Fresh
was an avid gardener and tennis player.
Fresh was buried in one of the largest funeral ceremonies in recent
years. Dozens of celebrities turned out including Mrs. Butterworth,
the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Aunt Jemima, Betty Crocker, the
Hostess Twinkies, and Skippy.
The grave side was piled high with flours as longtime friend Aunt
Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who
"never knew how much he was kneaded."
Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled
with many turnovers. He was not considered a very smart cookie,
wasting much of his dough on half-baked schemes -- conned by
those who buttered him up. Still, even as a crusty old man, he was
a roll model for millions.
Fresh is survived by his second wife. They have two children and
another bun in the oven.
The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.